Possible Dimensions of Consciousness in Narrative Inquiry and in Self Narrative - a Bakhtinian Perspective

Abstract

This paper discusses narrative writing and narrative inquiry as powerful resources for gaining awareness and for professional self-development. To this end, it presents possible movements in a narrative inquiry in which the researcher investigated her own teaching practice, on the basis of questions regarding how she became a teacher. The distinct places where she placed herself – beginning teacher, teacher-researcher and researcher – as a teacher who was investigating her own practice, made her aware of the distinct dimensions of these roles. Such dimensions were possible because, while writing reflexively about her work and inquiry - which led to provisional finalizations -, the teacher-researcher was placing herself at an exotopical place and expanded the verbal interactions from this place and with other interlocutors, thus acquiring a far-reaching vision that was not possible before. Drawing on possible perceptions thereof, she built memories of the future that would make her reorganize the practice on behalf of her professional development and of her pupils’ learning process.